Woody Allen awarded legal fees

Veteran filmmaker Woody Allen has been awarded $95,000 (Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£50,000) in legal fees by a New York City judge in his court battle with former producer Jean Doumanian over the editing of his films for television and airplanes.

Allen filed a case against Doumanian, her partner Jacqui Safra and their production company Sweetland Films five years ago, accusing them of cheating him out of $12 million (Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£6.6 million) in profits after refusing to give him an earnings report for eight films.

Despite reaching a settlement in 2002, the case was brought back to the Supreme Court in May (06) after a provision from the agreement stipulated if the parties disagreed over the editing for television, the matter would be resolved by a judge. Doumanian was responsible for editing Bullets over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love you, Deconstructing Harry, and Celebrity for television and in-flight cinema.

Justice Bernard Fried agreed that under the terms of the settlement Doumanian had the right to edit offensive words with substitute words, instead of bleeping them out as Allen would wish.

But State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried ruled on Thursday that Doumanian should cover Allen’s costs.